Eugenius

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Eugenius

Eugenius, the name of four popes. I. Saint, born in Rome, died there, June 2, 657. After the banishment of Martin I. in 653, Eugenius was chosen to govern the church as vicar general, and in September, 654, pope, with the consent of Martin, who died in the following year. He labored in vain, like his predecessor, to end the Monothelite controversy. II. Bora in Rome, died there, Aug. 27, 827. His election, in February, 824, gave rise to a schism that was quelled by the arrival in Rome of Lothaire, son of Louis le Debon-naire. This prince, conjointly with the pope, purified the administration of justice, and corrected many inveterate abuses. A council was convened for the reform of church discipline, which, among other enactments, enjoined on all who had charge of souls to expound the Scriptures to the people and instruct them in all their Christian duties. Eugenius also adopted wise measures for preventing scarcity of food and providing for the sick and poor, whence he was called " father of the people." Some writers have affirmed that he approved of the ordeal by water.

III. Bernardo Paganelli, born in Montemago, near Pisa, about 1100, died in Tivoli, July 8, 1153. He belonged at first to the order of Cluny, became afterward a follower of St. Bernard, and was by him appointed abbot of the Cistercianmonastery of the Three Fountains in Rome. On his accession to the papacy, in February, 1145, he found Rome under the government of a senate, with a president bearing the title of patricius. Lucius II. had been killed while attempting to put down a revolt; and Eugenius, unwilling to sanction the new order of things, left Rome, called on the Ti-burtines for aid, and restored for a time his own authority. He then proceeded to France and Germany for the purpose of organizing the second crusade; held councils in Paris, Rheims, and Treves; visited Clairvaux, where he had been a monk; and in 1149 returned to Italy. The Romans, who during his absence had again established a republic, were forced to submit to the pope through fear of the king of Sicily. Eugenius reentered Rome, but was driven out after a short time, and spent the remainder of his life in Tivoli. The present division of Ireland into four ecclesiastical provinces is due to this pontiff.

It was by his direction that Gratian published the body of canon law called Decretum; and at Gratian's suggestion he instituted the academic degrees of bachelor, licentiate or master, and doctor, to which he attached many privileges. IV. Gabriele Condul-mero, or de' Condulmeri, born in Venice in 1383, died in Rome, Feb. 23,1447. His mother was sister to Gregory XII. Gabriele after his father's death distributed 25,000 ducats among the poor, and became a canon in the Celestino congregation of San Giorgio in Alga. On the elevation of Gregory XII. he was induced to go to Rome, where his uncle made him successively chamberlain, bishop of Siena, and cardinal. Martin V. employed him in many important offices, and made him legate (governor) of the marches and Bologna. He was elected pope on the very day appointed by his predecessor for the opening of the oecumenical council of Basel, March 3, 1431. The counsels of the Orsini faction immediately involved him in a quarrel with their hereditary rivals, the Colonnas, the family of Martin V. The civil war which ensued was quelled for a time by the interposition of the emperor Sigismund, and the active support of the Florentines and Venetians. This led him to form an alliance with Venice and Florence against Filippo Maria Visconti, duke of Milan, and his father-in-law Alfonso the Wise of Aragon, both of whom thus became almost his lifelong enemies.

The Colonnas, though reduced to temporary submission, were powerfully aided by the Visconti; and their attacks and intrigues were followed up so perseveringly, that the Romans rose against Eugenius in 1434, and compelled him to fly in disguise to Florence. The council of Basel had been convened primarily for the double purpose of reforming the western clergy and healing the Hussite schism, and secondarily for bringing about a reconciliation with the eastern churches. The emperor Sigismund, with all the western princes and prelates, considered the former object as the only one of urgent importance, and approved of Basel for the meeting of the council. The pope, the Greek emperor and his prelates, and the Italian bishops were chiefly anxious for the reunion of the churches, and desired that the council should be held in an Italian city. The small number of prelates present in Basel throughout the year 1431, and some erroneous information given to the pope by a messenger from the council, induced him on Nov. 12 to write to Cardinal Cesarini, the president of the council, ordering him to dissolve it, and to proclaim the indiction of a new council in Bologna for 1433. Cesarini, who had just returned (October, 1431) from Bohemia, where he had witnessed the disgraceful rout of 100,000 imperial troops by Procopius and his Hussites, remonstrated energetically.

The council and the emperor had at his suggestion sent a pressing invitation to the Hussite leaders to come to Basel. The change ordered by the pope would destroy the last hope of ending the dreadful religious war which now threatened to devastate all Germany. This opposition of Cesarini was shared by the emperor, by all the western princes, and particularly by the king of Ara-gon and the duke of Milan. The members of the council therefore proceeded to act at first independently of the pope, and soon after against his authority and person. (See Basel, Council of.) The efforts of Sigismund, who was crowned in Rome in August, 1433, brought about a momentary peace between pope and council; but the revolutionary measures of the latter compelled the pope to dissolve it in June, 1437. An oecumenical council was opened in Ferrara Jan. 10, 1438; on Jan. 27 the pope arrived to preside in person, and early in February the Greek emperor, John Palaeologus, and a large number of Greek bishops, arrived in Ferrara, after having been magnificently entertained in Venice. The plague soon breaking out, the pontiff transferred the council to Florence, where on July 6, 1439, was published the decree of union of the Greek and Latin churches. (See Florence, Council of.) The Armenians, Jacobites, and other eastern communions sent in their adhesion subsequently, either before the end of this council or during that held in Rome in 1444. Meanwhile the refractory prelates of Basel had elected an antipope in the person of Amadeus of Savoy. In 1435 Joanna II. of Naples bequeathed her crown to Rene of Anjou; but the king of Aragon claimed it as his rightful inheritance, and supported his claim by a powerful armament.

The pope, who was the acknowledged suzerain of Naples, rejected both pretenders, and a calamitous war followed between him and Alfonso. It ended by the pope's granting the investiture of the kingdom to Alfonso, and by the latter's aiding the pope to repel the attacks of his own domestic enemies. The pope was thus enabled to reenter Rome Oct. 28, 1443, after nine years' absence; and he immediately convened a new council to meet in St. John Lateran in 1444. A new storm had been threatening Eugenius from the side of Germany. The bishops of Cologne and Treves had been excommunicated and deposed by him for their adherence to the antipope. As they enjoyed the rank of prince-electors of the empire, the whole electoral body took up their quarrel, which was also espoused by the emperor and all the German princes. They had taken at first a position of neutrality between Eugenius and the antipope; but the persistent refusal of the former to revoke his sentence of deposition brought on a threat of recognizing Felix V. as the lawful pope.

At length, through the good offices of AEneas Sylvius Pic-colomini, afterward pope as Pius II., the difficulty was settled, and all Germany declared formally against the antipope (1447). One of the great anxieties of Eugenius had been the steady progress westward of the Mohammedan power. The letters of the pontiff and the earnest exhortations of his legate Cesarini had induced Ladislas, the young king of Poland and Hungary, to take up arms against the Turks in 1440. The victories of Hunyady at length forced them to conclude a peace for ten years, and the treaty had been solemnly sworn to on the Gospel and Koran. The pope, however, refused to accept the peace, on the pretext that it had been concluded without his knowledge; a new war was begun, which ended on the field of Varna (1444), where Ladislas perished with 10,000 of his followers. Eugenius declared this disaster to be the bitterest affliction in his troublous life. In 1447, simultaneously with the settlement of the German difficulty, a plan was submitted to the pope by the French king for ending the schism in the church. This was accepted, and caused unbounded joy, in the midst of which Eugenius sickened and died.

He has been reproached with his monkish austerity of life, with rashness and inconstancy in many things, and inflexible obstinacy in others. Those most opposed to him allowed him, nevertheless, the praise of an unblemished life. He was, without being learned himself, a most generous patron of learning.